{"id":7723,"date":"2020-06-30T20:16:16","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T00:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=7723"},"modified":"2020-06-30T20:16:16","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T00:16:16","slug":"book-review-double-barrel-horror-volume-3-edited-by-matthew-weber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-double-barrel-horror-volume-3-edited-by-matthew-weber\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Double Barrel Horror, Volume 3 edited by Matthew Weber"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Double Barrel Horror, Volume 3\u00a0<\/em>edited by Matthew Weber (\u00a0 Amazon.com <\/a>\u00a0)<\/p>\n

Pint Bottle Press, 2020<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-945005-01-5<\/p>\n

Availability: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Double Barrel Horror, Volume 3 <\/em>is a 182 page collection of horror shorts by six different authors, two stories by each one.\u00a0 Most of the stories clock in at around the 10-15 page mark, and the quality is all over the map.\u00a0 There are some good ones, but some clunkers as well.\u00a0\u00a0 Or, in keeping with the “shotgun” theme of the book title, there are some good rounds of double-aught buck in here, but there is also a fair amount of birdshot and blanks mixed in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Calvin Demmer is the most consistent author out of the six; his “Highway Hell” and “Motel Madness” are entertaining romps, concerning how roadkill is really<\/em> removed from the highways, and what happens to a bad, but not truly evil, person when they are tossed into purgatory.\u00a0 Robert Essig’s “From Unclean Spells” is a decent story of necromancy gone wrong.\u00a0\u00a0 If nothing else, the belch-and-barf-fest (literally) in the story is quite amusing.\u00a0 Essig comes up big with “Fuel for the King of Death”, which scores high both in terms of originality and excitement.\u00a0 How does a freaky little Museum of Death keep getting new video footage for the museum?\u00a0 Read on and find out.\u00a0 Mark Matthews adds “Goodwin”, which is an entertaining take on the joys of necrophilia, from a corpse’s point of view.\u00a0 The most chilling story in the book certainly comes Glenn Rolfe.\u00a0 His “The House on Mayflower Street” is a terrifying look at what happens when nosy neighborhood brats start investigating the classic “abandoned house” in a suburban neighborhood.\u00a0 As the kids find out, curiosity is not only painful, it’s a lot worse than death.\u00a0 This one would make a good movie; it alone is almost worth the price of admission.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As for the rest of the stories\u2026meh.\u00a0 They aren’t necessarily bad, <\/em>but they aren’t that interesting either.\u00a0 The writing quality for all of them is fine, there just really isn’t anything in the stories to capture and hold the reader.\u00a0 They are okay for a quick moment, but there is nothing that will make the stories truly memorable for the reader.\u00a0 If you have the money to spare, you may want to consider picking this up for the good stories it does contain.\u00a0 Anyone on a limited budget, though, would be better off investing in The Third Corona Book of Horror Stories<\/em> or Lost Highways: Dark Fiction From the Road.<\/em><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Contains: violence, profanity, gore<\/p>\n

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Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Double Barrel Horror, Volume 3\u00a0edited by Matthew Weber (\u00a0 Amazon.com \u00a0) Pint Bottle Press, 2020 ISBN: 978-1-945005-01-5 Availability: Paperback, Kindle edition   Double Barrel Horror, Volume 3 is a 182 page collection of horror shorts by six different authors, two stories by each one.\u00a0 Most of the stories clock in at around the 10-15 page<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4483,4481,3114,4484,3163,3121,4485,1776,4482],"class_list":["post-7723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-calvin-demmer","tag-christine-morgan","tag-double-barrel-horror","tag-glenn-rolfe","tag-horror-short-stories","tag-matthew-weber","tag-robert-essig","tag-short-story-anthologies","tag-theresa-braun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7727,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7723\/revisions\/7727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}